Current textile printing technologies are deficient in meeting modern, time-driven, demand-responsive manufacturing strategies. In general, the conventional method of printing on textiles involves crosslinking a colorant to the cellulosic fiber of the textile itself. This approach is limited in that it relies on processes that involve multiple, time-consuming steps. Furthermore, the types of substrates and colorants that can be used are limited.
One approach for increasing textile printing speed involves the use of inkjet printing. Inkjet printers are very popular, due at least in part to their reliability, relatively quiet operation, versatility, graphics capability, print quality, and low cost. Moreover, inkjet printers have made possible "on demand" color printing without the need for complicated devices. Because inkjet printing has become so popular in both home and commercial use, several water-soluble inks are available. The inks are typically composed of water and a colorant, usually a dye or pigment dispersion, and often contain a number of additives for imparting certain features to the ink, e.g., improved stability and flow, smear resistance, and the like.
Unfortunately, the use of inkjet printing techniques to print on textiles has met with several problems. First, and in spite of the large number of inkjet inks currently available, inkjet printed images on textiles are often of low quality. For example, the printed images often smear upon handling, exhibit bleed (the intrusion of one color into an adjacent color), are moisture sensitive, and are dull, i.e., colored inks when printed fail to accurately produce the expected hues. Moreover, the printed images are often neither water-fast nor detergent-resistant, resulting in fading of the printed image after washing. Printed textile images with these drawbacks are wholly unacceptable to the textile industry, which requires not only that the image be both water-resistant and detergent-resistant, but also that the colors and hues are those deemed acceptable in the textile field. In addition, the textile industry also demands that while the colorant of the ink must adhere tenaciously to the substrate, it also must not alter the desirable hand properties of the substrate. This combination of requirements is very difficult to accomplish.
Although there have been developments and improvements in the field of textile printing, the methods currently used still do not provide optimum results. Thus, there is a need in the art for a textile treatment that can overcome the above problems, is relatively inexpensive, and can generally provide a high quality inkjet printed image on a textile substrate, preferably using presently available dyes. The present invention is addressed to this need.